Going Deaf
by FlyingHampsterOfDoom
Summary: He's named the stars since she's been gone, because it's what she would like him to do- but no matter how many languages he uses and no matter how many descriptions he comes up with, none of them really mean Donna.


Her head is full up and she can feel the heartbeat of the TARDIS thrumming through her- she knows what it means. Of course she knows what it means.

But she looks down at her hands and she can practically see the particles of Time shifting under her fingertips, just waiting for her to play with them; and she can hear the steady _taddap taddap _that the universe in enveloping her in.

And she thinks she would rather die, then let the Doctor fix this. Let him fix her.

She strokes the console lovingly, and realizes now why the TARDIS kept stealing _bits- _the hairbrush she first packed (which now looks nothing like a hairbrush, but resembles something more akin to neon-pink coral) that somehow assimilated itself into a lever. That coat button Donna had thought she'd accidentally ripped off on Hoth- an actual planet named _Hoth_, of course she had insisted on popping in for a visit- which was now some sort of television button.

She just wishes she had found a way to take a part of the TARDIS with her, too; wishes she had had the foresight to think that she wouldn't come back, one day.

So while her and The Doctor One-Half (because calling him Doctor 2.0 makes him sound like some sort of improvement) are mucking about, she pretends that her brain isn't full, and that her hands don't shake.

She pretends that the TARDIS doesn't feel like pain in her heart, which is odd because to her it suddenly feels like one just isn't enough. She's carrying the thought of the entire universe- hell, the entire universes- in her head. All that hope and pain and love; all that discovery and mystery.

Time Lords need two hearts to contain it all, and Donna Noble's just got the one.

So she runs around, trying not to let herself feel lopsided with a big head and an empty ribcage and fingers that itch with Time particles weaving about them. She idly wonders if you can be allergic to them, like some people are to dust.

Another reason she knows what it all means.

She hides what she knows is going to come with a wide smile and fast words; filling up the empty space where her second heart should be with the overfill from a suddenly too massive brain.

For a moment her and the Doctor both pretend that this could work, that he won't be lonely anymore and she won't go back- just _back_. She's weaving words between them and speeding about the TARDIS, who is also playing along. There's a hum from deep within her chest she knows is emanating from the floor, and she stamps her feet about, talking faster than she ever has and she swears she can feel her organs pulse with love that she never wants to stop.

The Doctor's staring at her, and she knows he's holding in a smile, she can see it in the way the lights in the TARDIS grow brighter, just a fraction. And for a moment more all three pretend that the DoctorDonna can happen.

She can feel the universe in her head, though, and her neurons aren't moving like they should- or is it her synapsis aren't firing right- or is it her neural pathways feel clogged? Her particles, her atoms, Time dust, she sees them all playing about in her hair and through her hands as she waves them about, and she feels them pouring out of her teeth as she smiles over at the Doctor.

She's slipping, and so she tries to tell him how he can fix his Chameleon Circuit.

And now the Doctor does smile, and it's sad, and she knows she can no longer be the DoctorDonna, can no longer be _Donna_, and she knows she'd rather die. Knows he'd never let that happen.

So she says words that he's heard before, that she knows will hurt him- she says _I was going to be with you forever_ to him, and watches as his smile goes away; because now he knows she doesn't want him to pretend that it's going to be ok. Now he knows that she's hurt him just as bad as he's going to hurt her.

She cries while he steals them all away from her- and it's painful; not at all like she had _known _it would be. Because she had his memories, (she can still remember that part, even as he's stealing them away one by one) and he's done this before. It isn't painful, it shouldn't be painful. Except it is.

The very fabric of everything is within her, and he's pulling it all out; it's not just him and his memories he's taking, and it's not just her he's riffling through and selectively weeding out. It's _everything_- the birth of stars that she's witnessed and named (which surprises him, because that's his memory, and he hadn't really found it marvelous enough to consider a name- there were so many more before it and so many more after it. If she had the time she would argue with him that they all deserved names).

The swish and pull of black holes like velvet over water; the singular birth of a singular life that went on to become an entire civilization that lived in flowers floating on the wind; the speckling of dewdrops like so many music notes set carefully upon a spiders' web.

The musical composition of the universe and he was making her deaf to it.

But she had told him forever and not delivered- and in a world where love and eternity could never be together, she figured that made them even.


End file.
